“But still, 11, five or four maternal deaths mean mothers are dying and that shouldn’t be happening,” he told the Inquirer. “What they need are adequate resources, facilities and services and we can address all these now. We don’t have to be dependent on any RH bill to do these.”

Sotto cited the women and children’s crisis center he put up at the Vicente Sotto Memorial Hospital in Cebu. With an initial fund of P10 million in 2003, the center caters to around 10 patients a day, he said.

The senator said similar centers were in the works in Iloilo and Luzon.

The Likhaan Center for Women’s Health disputed the Lancet findings, saying “it is implausible that the Philippines achieved a record-setting decline in MMR amid all the (economic and political) turmoil (during the 1980s).”

“If Hogan and colleagues estimates were accurate, the great mystery is: How was it achieved?” the group’s Junice Melgar and Alfredo Melgar asked in a letter to Lancet.

“Other indicators of maternal health support a scenario of little progress. For example, the proportion of deliveries by health professionals in the Philippines has risen very slowly—a mere 17 percent over 15 years (53-62 percent from 1993 to 2008), whereas Egypt, a widely accepted success story in MMR reduction, achieved a 94-percent increase in 16 years (41-79 percent from 1992 to 2008).”

Among neighboring countries, East Timor registered the highest MMR at 929 in the Lancet study. Laos had 339, Cambodia 266, Indonesia 229 and Burma 219.